


To Be Born a Second Blade

by shakina



Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Gen, Like, Murder, literally tho
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-10-27 01:02:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10798485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakina/pseuds/shakina
Summary: Shiota Nagisa takes out his first hit before he reaches double digits. He watches his mother die before he hits puberty, and smiles the whole time. He first goes to school for the first time when he's thirteen. In that order.(The one where Shioti Hiromi raises her son as an assassin from a young age.)





	1. Chapter 1

Nagisa is eight, and his mother needs to die. These are the facts.

 

Hiromi is guiding her son's hand to the hilt of a knife, hidden by a checkered cloth, smile wide and brittle like plastic.

 

“That man,” she says, pointing, “is a bad man. You know what you have to do.”

 

Nagisa does. His fingers clench around the knife. Slowly, he rises from his seated position across from his mother at an outdoor cafe. Every day that week, they'd come to the same cafe, sat at the same table, backs to a wall and facing the entrance to a lavish apartment block. _Reconnaissance,_ his mother had whispered in his ear, _is the most important part of the job._

 

Nagisa makes his way towards the gate that blocks off the outdoor seating of the cafe. His gait is casual and relaxed, his pulse steady and even. The flat of the knife pressed to the skin of his lower back grounds him, a point of focus in his empty head. _Emotions are useless in this line of work, Nagisa,_ his mother had always told him. _They can turn anyone into a raving monster, a beast. Do you know what happens to beasts, Nagisa? They get put down._ Her hand had gripped his chin tightly, assuring he couldn't look away. _Be not a beast, little doll, but a machine. Machines don't have feelings, machines do not fail. Machines show no mercy._

 

As Nagisa gets closer to the target, he clocks two bodyguards. Both in plainclothes, both carrying guns. Undercover officers, Nagisa would guess, if pressed. Or, more likely, due to his mother's choice in mark, witness protection. The Glock 19's in the bodyguards' ankle holsters supports that theory.

 

As Nagisa sauntered closer, he wondered what his target had done to get himself into the protection program. He was probably a criminal who had decided to rat out his buddies in exchange for a reduced sentence. He had probably done terrible things.

 

(None of the things Nagisa tries to convince himself of will make this any easier.)

 

The two bodyguards are in a simple formation, one a couple meters ahead of their charge, the other a couple of meters behind. The two guards guide Nagisa's target down the busy street, unaware of the eyes on them. Nagisa doesn't see any more bodyguards, doubts his mother would have let him go as he is if there were. She would have at least given him a gun.

 

It's an easy thing really, to sneak up behind the rear bodyguard and drag him into the closest alleyway.

 

“What the– what the hell do you think you're doing, kid?”

 

Nagisa doesn't reply, doesn't need to. The bodyguard has crouched down to be on his level, smile big but eyes irritated. The young boy almost scoffs in derision. Nagisa pulls the knife out from the back of his pants and has knocked the guard out with the hilt of it before he can even blink. _Amateur,_ he thinks.

 

(Sometimes Nagisa sounds so much like his mother that he scares himself.)

 

Nagisa briefly considers dragging the unconscious body to a more discreet place, but quickly discards the thought. It would take too long, and his mother would be so angry if he loses his target. Besides, someone will find him eventually. Probably. With an almost careless shrug, Nagisa slips out of the alleyway.

 

The young boy follows his target in the fallen bodyguards place, bringing up the rear. He keeps the knife in his hand but no one spares him a second glance, too focused on where they need to be. The front guard glances back, and Nagisa freezes, ready to spring. He relaxes again when the bodyguard spares only a brief glance at his charge before turning his gaze back ahead.

 

Nagisa watches as his target bumps into a passerby and apologizes with a wide smile.

 

_I'm going to kill you_ , Nagisa thinks. _I'm going to kill you, and I don't even know why. I don't even know your name._

 

Nagisa is short, even for his age, and so he blends seamlessly into the pulsing crowd. He hangs back slightly as the bodyguard opens the door to a car, stalled on the side of the street. The car looks like any other parked along the street, dark blue and in moderately good condition. The only thing that makes it stand out is the dark tinted windows.

 

Nagisa's mark climbs into the car. As the bodyguard proceeds to climb in after him, Nagisa slips behind him and uses both hands to slam his head against the car door way. He then shoves him into the car, following quickly afterwards. Nagisa pulls the car door shut. The glass divider is also tinted, Nagisa is relieved to see. He taps his knuckles against the divider to signal to the driver to pull out.

 

The target wastes precious time staring at Nagisa in disbelief. But soon his hand goes to the door handle, movements turning frantic when it doesn't open. He scrambles at the tinted window, fists banging futilely at the glass. Nagisa almost feels sorry for him.

 

He puts up a fight, hands tight around Nagisa's thin wrists. But within minutes, Nagisa is straddling his lap, mark's hands restrained and knife at his throat.

 

“You're just– you're j-ust a k-kid,” he stutters out, a last ditch plea.

 

“No,” Nagisa replies, speaking for the first time, “I'm a machine.” And with those words, he slits his mark's throat open.

 

Nagisa climbs gingerly out of the dead man's lap. He flops back into the seat on the other side of the car. Nagisa closes his eyes and waits.

 

Ten minutes or ten hours later, Nagisa couldn't tell the difference, the car comes to a stop. The driver gets out and opens the car door. Nagisa can hear the smartly dressed man gasp as he takes in the scene. Blood covers the car interior, two bodies laying there lifelessly (though only one of them was truly lifeless). And in the midst of it, a blue haired boy sits, knife in hand and seatbelt on. He unplugs it and hops out of the car.

 

“Thanks for the ride,” he smiles sweetly up at the driver, and strolls past him to make himself disappear.

 

Nagisa thinks the driver calls after him, but the boy is too busy thinking about how he is going to get home.

 

In the end, Nagisa ends up stealing the phone of the first person he bumps into. He dials the number of his mother's most recent burner phone and gives her the name of the street he's on before she hangs up.

 

She picks him up half an hour later in a car Nagisa doesn't recognise. He sees the blood on his mothers cheek and doesn't ask where the car came from.

 

"So?" his mother asks, smile bright and happy and _fake_. Nagisa doesn't know if he's ever seen his mother smile genuinely. He wonders if she has. "How did it go?"

 

"It went well." Nagisa doesn't let any of his anguish show on his face. He smiles bright and cheery. "No civilians paid me any attention. No one will believe the bodyguards if they tell them what they saw."

 

(Nagisa wonders if his smile looks as brittle as his mothers.)

 

"That's wonderful, little doll," she gives him a proud, if forceful, pat on the shoulder. "I knew you could do it, Nagisa."

 

Against his will, Nagisa feels a proud flush spreading across his cheeks. He wonders if it makes him a monster to feel proud of his bloody sins.

 

(He wonders if he should care. He wonders if his mother would tell him that machines can't be monsters.)

 

When they arrive back at their apartment, Nagisa's mother tells him to pack his things. It takes him less than ten minutes to pack away what little he had even bothered to take out of his duffel bag. He deems the clothes still in the wash a lost cause and focuses on cleaning his knife.

 

The blood covering it has dried by now, dark brown and coming off in flakes. He cleans it in the bathroom sink, only looking up from the edge of the blade when his mother calls his name.

 

"Nagisa! Are you ready to leave?"

 

Slipping the knife into his duffel bag, Nagisa meets up with his mother in the kitchen.

 

"Let me just finish writing this email and we can leave, little doll," Hiromi tells him offhandedly.

 

"Of course, mother," Nagisa takes a seat at the island.

 

Nagisa stares at his hands. They are small, a child's hands. But the callouses, the small scars and flattened knuckles, they don't fit the picture. They are his hands, they are the hands of a stranger, they are tools. Nagisa doesn't recognise himself in them, in the same way he sees a stranger when he looks in the mirror. He looks in the mirror and he sees his mothers hair and his mothers fake smile and his mothers _little doll_. He sees a murderer, an assassin, a machine. He sees _liar, liar, liar_ because that is all he is. Nagisa is nothing but his mother's puppet, pretending to be a person.

 

Nagisa thinks about the man he killed today. He means nothing to the boy, just another lifeless dead body, just another name he doesn't know. Another closed casket funeral, another tally mark on Nagisa's list. It's run of the mill now, the chaos left in their wake, his wake. Destruction is in his bones, it runs through his veins. He was raised on it, he lives and breathes death. It is diffused into his blood with every beat of his heart like a poison. Nagisa is rotted from the inside out. No fake smile can hide that.

 

"What was his name?" Nagisa's voice is deafening in the quiet kitchen. He hadn't meant to say anything, wished he could suck the words back into his body and hide them somewhere his mother will never see.

 

Hiromi's fingers still on the keyboard. Her voice is cold with thinly veiled rage, smile stretched too wide and threatening. "What?"

 

Nagisa's mouth opens without his consent, words spilling out like blood from a slit throat. "What was his name? The man that you had me kill? What was his _name_?"

 

The plastic smile shatters. "It isn't your place to ask questions, Nagisa."

 

"I deserve to know," his voice is weak and feeble.

 

The sound of her palm hitting Nagisa's cheek is loud in the silence that follows. He instinctively moves to put a hand over his burning cheeks, but his mother grabs his wrist in a bone-shattering grip.

 

"Now you listen to me, Shiota Nagisa," she is breathing heavily, cheeks flushed with rage, "I am your mother. Do you know what I've given up for you? I could have become the most feared assassin, but instead I decided to raise you. Am I not a good mother, Nagisa? Do I not give you everything you could ever wish for? I have given sweat, blood and tears to make you who you are today." She leaned forward, hand coming up to wrap around her son's throat. "If I tell you not to ask questions, you don't ask questions. Understood?"

 

Nagisa nods frantically. He can feel his oxygen cutting off. Hiromi tightens her hand briefly before she releases him. Nagisa sags backwards in his chair.

 

Hiromi glances at the clock before smiling brightly, mask back in place. "Look at the time! We best be off is we want to be out of the city before morning."

 

"Yes, mother."

 

"Oh, don't 'yes, mother' me! If you're good, we can stop for milkshakes! Wouldn't you like that, little doll?"

 

Nagisa takes a deep breath. He locks his emotions into a box in the back of his mind. Puts on his mask, almost identical to his mother's, smile fixed in place. "Only if I can get chocolate."

 

 

 *

 

 

Nagisa is eight years old and his mother needs to die.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

“You're so pretty, Nagisa," his mothers voice is a soft sigh as her fingers card through his hair. "I wish I was as beautiful as you when I was your age."

 

Nagisa is wearing a dress. It is soft and pink and he hates it with his entire being. Hates the way it falls delicately around his knees, gently caressing the skin there. Hates the spaghetti straps digging into his slim shoulders. He hates his long hair, soft and fine, brushing the skin of his neck.

 

"Such a perfect little girl," Hiromi croons, hands coming up to cradle Nagisa's face tenderly. He hates her. Feels his skin crawling with every point of contact between them. Wishes he could shove her away, tear the dress off and scratch at his skin until every trace of her disappears.

 

Instead, he stands still as his mother paints his lips a soft red, her eyes pleased and loving. He doesn't correct her -- doesn't say he isn't a girl. That would only make her angry, and angry, Nagisa knows, is dangerous.

 

They haven't had a mark in weeks. His mother has become restless, always pacing. She has fallen into one of her moods over the last week. This is the first time she's looked at Nagisa with anything but disgust, taking out her bloodlust on him. So Nagisa is glad for the reprieve from constant violence and abuse, even if it means he has to pretend to be a girl. It's certainly not the first time his mother has dressed him up and put make up on him.

 

It's the longest Nagisa has gone without a hit, and he can tell his mother is going crazy without getting to fulfil her bloodlust through him.

 

(If Nagisa was being honest, he's going crazy, too.)

 

"Which necklace would you like to wear?" Hiromi smiles encouragingly at him.

 

Nagisa looks at the two necklaces. Considers throwing them both to the floor, crushing them underneath his heel. Discards the thought as quickly as it passes through his mind, knowing the action would only result in another painful 'lesson'. The thought still gives Nagisa a rush of satisfaction, even as he points to the necklace closest to him. Hiromi's smile brightens as she bustles behind him to put it on.

 

Nagisa doesn't like having her at his back, feels the skin between his shoulder blades itch. Doesn't like letting her so close to his exposed throat. The chain is cold around his neck like a garrotte. Nagisa's breathing is slow and measured, but he can feel his clenched hands beginning to sweat, his pulse speeding up. He wonders if his mother can see it at his pulse point, can probably hear the frantic beating of his heart.

 

"There we go," Hiromi fixes the necklace clasp and circles back around to smile at her son. She smooths out the front of the dress, dreamy smile in place. "You look so cute, little doll. Even though you're still so flat. But don't worry, you'll fill out in a couple years time, just you wait."

 

Nagisa doesn't pull away -- isn't that stupid. Instead, he smiles up at his mother, and thinks about what Hiromi's blood would look like splattered over the pink dress he is wearing.

 

"I'm sure your new mark will think you look just as lovely as I do," Hiromi's words cause the blood to freeze in Nagisa's veins.

 

New mark? When had his mother found a new hit? Usually there were weeks of planning before she sent Nagisa to assassinate someone. Maybe it was a last minute job? They had those sometimes -- frazzled clients insisting that they needed a person killed as soon as possible, or when other assassins had dropped out at the last minute and called his mother to take care of it instead. One thing wasn't adding up, though.

 

"Why do I have to wear a dress?"

 

Hiromi offers a condescending laugh. "While I'm sure the target would be just as interested in a pretty boy, having you go as a pretty girl has a higher chance of luring him in."

 

Nagisa feels his smile freeze on his face. His mother is panning on using him as bait to some sort of...child molester? He almost wishes he could say the turn of events surprises him, but it sounds like exactly the sort of thing his mother would do.

 

Reluctantly, Nagisa follows his mother as she leads him out of their hotel room. He feels cold creeping into his bones as he waits for her to lock up, legs exposed to the wind. Looking out over the bustling neighbourhood, Nagisa longs for a different life. For a mother with real smiles, maybe even a father who would stick around. He wishes he had been born into a life where he was taught to love instead of kill. He wishes he had hands that weren't forever stained, that knew more than how to inflict pain and death.

 

(Most of all, Nagisa wishes he hadn't been born at all.)

 

"Ready?" Hiromi looks over at Nagisa over her shoulder. She smiles when he nods, and leads him away by the hand.

 

They walk for twenty minutes before they reach a park. It isn't much to look at -- a worn down set of swings and a dismal looking red slide. Nagisa looks over at a rusted roundabout and wonders whether he could even make it turn. He doubts it would be worth risking a tetanus shot to find out. It's deserted, to no one's surprise -- only an insane person would bring their child here.

 

"Go play, Nagisa," his mother smiles encouragingly at him before settling herself on a rotting wooden bench.

 

Nagisa looks sceptically at his mother and then at the dreary park. He looks at his mother once more, as if to say _'seriously?'_ before he sighs, resigned to his fate. He approaches the swing set as if it were a wild animal, as cautious as can be expected. The chain has snapped on one, half of the seat missing on the other. He sits on the half seat wearily. Nagisa doesn't dare try swinging, just sits on it with both feet planted firmly on the ground, because, well, he doesn't want to die. At least not at the hands of a rickety swing set. Nagisa knows that one day he'll be killed, and he knows that he'll deserve it, but he plans to go down swinging. And, dammit, he isn't going to be taken out by a _swing set_.

 

It doesn't take long for the man to approach him. He's tall, broad shoulders towering threateningly over Nagisa. He searches for his mother and finds her sitting peacefully on a bench on the other side of the park, calculating eyes watching their interaction closely.

 

“Hey there, darling,” the man's breath is rancid. Nagisa can smell it from a couple of feet away, where the man is standing far too close for comfort. “Where're your parents at?”

 

Nagisa looks at his mother uncertainly. She gestures for him to talk, encouraging him to further pursue a conversation with the man standing over him. So this vile man is Nagisa's current mark? Looking up at the man's hungry gaze, he feels all too glad to remove him from the face of the Earth. Scum like him, men who take advantage of the weak deserve their fate, and Nagisa doubts he'll feel any regret for being the one to deliver it personally.

 

(He ignores the fact that he wouldn't have felt guilt regardless of the mark – sympathy is a weakness his mother has driven out of him by now. He also tries to block out the way the mark's eyes are the exact same shade as his mother's.)

 

“I don't have parents,” Nagisa finally replies, eyes returning to the man in front of him.

 

“That's a shame,” he smiles big and wide, perfectly white teeth a jarring contrast to the rest of the man's appearance. The teeth of a predator, if Nagisa's ever seen them.

 

(He doubts they're sharper than the blade strapped to Nagisa's thigh, though.)

 

“Why don't you come with me, little girl? I'm sure we can find some nice police man, eh?”

 

Nagisa wouldn't have believed it even if he wasn't already thinking of him like a mark. Looking up to the grotesquely smiling face of his victim, he doubts someone even twice as naïve as himself would have believed this man was sincere.

 

With a sickening lurch in his stomach, Nagisa nods woodenly and rises from his precocious seating position.

 

Desperately, Nagisa's eyes search out his mother over the mark's shoulder. When she notices his gaze, Hiromi gives him an encouraging smile and a quick thumbs up. Nagisa feels sick.

 

Ice enters his veins as the large man leads Nagisa away from the park, large hand clamped on his thin shoulders. He doesn't like how smug the target looks, staring possessively down at Nagisa. He doesn't like how the man clearly sees Nagisa as his victim.

 

(He doesn't like how much he feels like a victim in that moment, either.)

 

As soon as they're out of sight behind the back of a rundown building, the man's hands go from Nagisa's shoulder, to his waist.

 

"If you're quiet, I won't have to hurt you," the words are said against Nagisa's ear, putrid and hot. He turns his face away and closes his eyes in disgust. The man holding him chuckles darkly, pleased at his reaction.

 

Before Nagisa knows what's happening, a meaty hand is reaching for the hem of his dress, pulling it up past his thighs. The person manhandling him freezes, noticing the knife strapped in a holster on Nagisa's thigh. The black leather stands out stark against his pale skin and the pink dress held against them.

 

“What's this?” he snarls, ripping the military-grade knife from it's holster. He suddenly lifts his head to stare at Nagisa in accusation. “Were you planning to kill me? Oh, now you're gonna get it kid. I was going to be gentle with you, but you've ruined that now.”

 

Nagisa reaches for the knife in his victim/attacker's hand, but the man growls angrily and throws it to the other side of the alleyway, turning back to Nagisa with a feral smirk. Nagisa scrambles fruitlessly at the hand holding him against the filthy wall, but his opponent is too strong. Nagisa may know how to fight, and he may be able to name and use any weapon put in front of him, but at the end of the day, he is still just a child, and weak against a grown man. Hand-to-hand combat has always been his weakest area and, without his weapon, Nagisa is defenceless.

 

The man in front of him wraps a large, meaty hand around Nagisa's neck and lifts him up, before slamming him back against the wall. The action causes the young boy to slam his head against brick, vision briefly blacking out. He feels pain slam through his back, lighting up his bones with fire. It's certainly not the worst pain Nagisa's felt; this is nothing compared to what his mother does to him when she's in a _good_ mood.

 

(It's almost ironic how the most pain he's felt has been caused not by the people he kills, but at the hands of the person who'd raised him.)

 

_Is this it?_ Nagisa thinks frantically, _Is this how I die?_ Nagisa had always thought that when the time of his death came, it would be a relief. A way to finally escape his cruel mother's clutches, to be _free_. He had thought it would feel like liberation, a gift he would finally be lucky enough to receive.

 

But now that his time has finally come, and Nagisa is staring his death in the face, he is terrified. His hands scramble uselessly at his tormentors hand around his throat, fighting to breath around the constriction. _Maybe I should just give up,_ he thinks, almost manic in his desperation. And it would be so easy – he could go limp, stop struggling and just let what's going to happen,happen.

 

_No._ The thought rips through him like a tide, cutting through the jagged edges of Nagisa's oxygen-deprived brain. He can't give up. He refuses to be taken out by the likes of the scum in front of him. Refuses to bend to the will of other people. He refuses to fall victim to _fate_ , and what will happen, will happen because he makes it so. Besides, Nagisa has been fighting his whole life, he doubts he remembers how not to anymore.

 

Determined now, he kicks out at his attacker, managing to catch him in the stomach after several failed attempts. The man immediately releases him and falls away, clutching his abdomen. Nagisa lands on shaky legs, and wastes precious seconds just catching his breath. He pushes himself away from the wall, and staggers over to where his mark had earlier thrown his knife. He bends down to pick it up, and nearly doesn't get back up again. He can feel the bruises already beginning to form up and down his back, and, by the sound of his rattling breaths, he had probably broken or at least cracked a rib. The pain lacing along his nerves was hard to ignore, but Nagisa has experience dealing with unbearable pain, and pushes through it.

 

He turns to face his opponent, who has already recovered from the kick to the stomach and is standing, glaring at Nagisa with a hatred intense enough to rival his own.

 

“You fucking brat,” the words are snarled out between gritted teeth, blue eyes fiery with rage. “I'm going to kill you!”

 

_Oops,_ Nagisa thinks almost hysterically, giving a mental shrug. _Them's the breaks._

 

His opponent launches himself at Nagisa with wild abandon, fury fuelling his erratic moves. He was fast, strong too, but predictable, and Nagisa manages to dodge the majority of his attacks without much effort. He obviously wasn't used to fighting, or at least not against someone who could fight back. Eventually, Nagisa has to stop simply defending himself, and begins attacking with precise, deadly moves. First, he slips behind the brute of a man, and then lands a firm kick to the back of his knees. He falls, but Nagisa is still not satisfied. He plants a foot firmly to the back of his neck and grinds it down against the pavement.

 

“People like you disgust me,” he gives one last hard kick to the back of the man's head. “I hate you.”

 

Nagisa leans down to grip him by his hair, raising his head just to smash it back into the ground, over and over again. “You. Deserve. Every. Thing. You. Get,” each word was emphasised with a smash to the face. Soon, his mark was unrecognisable, face bloody and distorted.

 

“I hate you, _so much_ ,” Nagisa turns him over and straddled his waist, dress falling in a circle around him.

 

With the last of his strength, Nagisa raises his knife, and stabs it viciously into the already marred face beneath him. “I _hate_ you.” Somehow, he finds the strength to pull the knife out, only to drive it back in. And he keeps driving that knife down, until all he can see is _red,_ and the pretty pink dress he was wearing turned _red,_ and the blood coating his hands, his knife, his face, was _red, red, red._

 

Out of breath, Nagisa leans back and stared up at the sky. The tears blurring his vision told him that he had been crying, and the way his shoulders were shaking uncontrollably only supported that. He looks down and observes almost distantly that the man he was sat on was dead.

 

Almost desperate, movements on the verge of frantic, Nagisa began digging through the dead man's pockets, searching. He finds what he's looking for eventually, and holds it close to his face for inspection. _Fukushima Akihiko_ , the drivers license in his wallet said. Nagisa finally has a name, but it seems too innocent, _ordinary,_ for the monster in front of him. But he has a name to put to one of his many victims.

 

(He wishes he could say it was a relief.)

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

It's a normal day, almost unreal in it's peacefulness, when Hiromi Shiota is murdered.

 

* * *

 

Nagisa is sat besides his mother as she teaches him the power hierarchy of the Russian Mafia. His mother has home schooled him for as long as he can remember. She taught him the bare essentials of a normal school curriculum before stopping all regular studies before he turned five – apart from English. English, she had explained patiently, could be the advantage needed to get closer to his mark. She also taught him several other languages she deemed useful, including French and Russian.

 

In addition to his language lessons, Hiromi taught her son a variety of unorthodox things. She taught him how to stand out in a crowd, and how not to. She taught him how to make himself look vulnerable, and how to achieve a level of blankness in his eyes that made grown men part for him in the street. She taught him how to get the other guy to throw the first punch, and how to keep his victims smiling until they realised he wasn't on their side, never suspecting a thing before he buried his knife into their throats. She didn't just teach him how to kill, she taught him how to make dying _hurt_.

 

When their current lesson – the best poisons to use that kill the slowest – was over, Nagisa was dismissed to his bedroom. There, he was meant to practice a variety of closed quarter fighting techniques – during his most recent hit, his mark had gotten the best of him in a fight and pinned him. His mother had had to rescue him and took out the mark herself, stabbing her in the back of the neck.

 

(Mistakes were unacceptable, and Hiromi had beaten that lesson into his skin that night.)

 

Instead of falling into the easy movements of his practice, Nagisa reaches for his Sonic Ninja comic book. He had hidden it in the bottom of his sniper rifle case, beneath the padding, and he carefully takes the gun out to reveal his comic's shiny cover.

 

Hiromi was against her son taking part in anything that distracted him from his training or got in the way of his assassinations. She had explicitly said that anything that didn't hone his skills was a waste of time, and that he was forbidden to take part in it.

 

With a small, rebellious smile curving his lips, Nagisa relaxes against his bedroom door and begins reading.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Nagisa wakes to the smell of burning. Two weeks had passed since his small act of rebellion, and the smoke in the air reminds him of how he had disposed of the comic as soon as he had finished reading it. It wasn't safe to keep them – not that he had the room; his sniper rifle case was designed to hold one thing, and it wasn't a stack of comics – so he had to get rid of them as soon as he could after reading. This time he had gone with throwing them in the fireplace of the apartment they had previously been staying in. He has since replaced it with the latest issue, but has yet to read it.

 

They were in a house this time, just off the coast of a beach that overlooked the sea. The smell of saltwater that usually prevailed through the small place, however, was replaced by the smoke clogging the air.

 

Blearily, Nagisa stumbles out of his bed and down the stairs to the kitchen, where the burning smell was coming from. When he opens the door, more smoke pours out and chokes him. Coughing into his fist, he enters, waving his spare hand to clear the smoke.

 

“Nagisa, sweetie, did I wake you? I'm so sorry. I was planning to wake you up with breakfast, but, well, you can see how that turned out.”

 

Nagisa stares at his mother as she laughs self-deprecatingly. She was already dressed in a warm blue sweater and what were undeniably mom jeans. There was a flower patterned apron tied around her neck, flour smeared across her face, and a spatula in her hand.

 

Nagisa feels a gentle smile crawl across his face. So his mother was in one of her good moods? Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he slid up next to his mother and gently coaxed the spatula out of her hand. He nudges her out of the way with his hip and laughs at the mess she'd made.

 

“You know you're hopeless in the kitchen,” Nagisa has to bite his lip to keep from laughing at his mother's pout.

 

“I wanted to surprise you,” she rubs absently at the flour on her face. “And it wouldn't have been much of a surprise if I had asked you to supervise.”

 

He raises an eyebrow. “Well, congratulations, I'm definitely surprised.” _And not just at the fact you're acting like a mother instead of a handler._

 

Nagisa scrapes what looked like it could have been a sausage, had it not been nothing more that a charcoal lump, out of the frying pan. Hiromi starts fiddling with the old radio she had found tucked away in some unknown place, giving a pleased caw when it finally crackles to like and starts blaring out a song. Nagisa shakes his head fondly as he cracks a couple of eggs into a bowl and turns a new pan onto a low heat.

 

Just as he's reaching for the salt, Hiromi grabs his hand and he freezes. He looks almost reluctantly up at his mother's face, but she was still smiling, still in a good mood.

 

“Come on, Nagisa, dance with your mother!” She laughs, pulling him close and swaying to the beat. “I love this song.”

 

Nagisa joins in on her laughter and sways along with her, their hands clasped, before he reluctantly pulls away to resume his cooking. Hiromi sings obnoxiously along with the song lyrics to some gaudy pop-song while Nagisa cooks, much to her son's amusement.

 

When he's finished cooking, mother and son sit at the small tiled table next to the window. The view is beautiful, overlooking golden sand and clear blue waves. The scenery seems to match Nagisa's mood. _Today,_ he thinks, watching his mother gesture with her chopsticks as she talks, _is going to be a good day._

 

(If only he had the foresight to know how wrong he was going to be.)

 

* * *

 

They end up going to the beach. Nagisa packs them a lunch, and they walk the short distance to the the town's beautiful beach.

 

Hiromi collects an irresponsible amount of shells from the shore and a variety of rock-pools, while Nagisa floats aimlessly through the ocean. After a couple of hours, Nagisa drags his mother away to eat their lunch where they had unpacked their things. He eats sandy rolls, and then ice cream after Hiromi buys them both one from a vendor. His mother helps him build a makeshift castle, and eventually relents and gives up some of her seashells for the cause of decorating it. They walk home with sand-coated feet, shoes in their hands and smiles stretching their faces. Altogether, it's the best day Nagisa's had in weeks. Possibly even his whole life.

 

Hiromi's still in a good mood when they get home, her shell bounty wrapped securely in her unused towel. Nagisa offers to clean them while his mother packs up the rest of their stuff for their departure tomorrow, and she readily agrees.

 

Nagisa rinses the shells of sand in the kitchen sink and eventually retrieves a tall glass to put them in.

 

“I couldn't find any tubs with lids on that are ours, but I found this glass to put them in.” Nagisa declares as he walks in. “Do you think the owner's will mind if we take it?”

 

When he doesn't get a reply for a few moments, Nagisa looks up. He takes and involuntary step back when he sees his mother kneeling on the living room floor, Nagisa's sniper rifle case open in front of her. He can't see her face from where he is, but Hiromi's voice is disturbingly blank when she speaks.

 

“Am I not a good mother, Little Doll?”

 

_Looks like her good mood's over,_ Nagisa thinks sardonically, even as he shivers at the use of her nickname for him.

 

“What-what do you mean?” Nagisa curses himself for letting his voice crack. “You're a wonderful mother.”

 

“Are you sure, Nagisa? Because I don't think you'd show this much disrespect to me if I was.” Hiromi abruptly stands and turns to him, delirious anger blazing in her eyes.

 

Nagisa's eyes immediately go to the glossy cover of his Sonic Ninja comic clutched in her balled fist. He feels his expression close off and his hands fall loosely to his sides, a battle stance that she had drilled into him.

 

(Nagisa ignores the fact that he's never been the one to hurt his mother, and he isn't likely to start now. For now, he needs to pretend that he can be strong. He _is_ strong.) (The lie almost makes him laugh.)

 

Nagisa doesn't dare move, barely breathes for fear of spurring her into action. Right now she's a powder keg, and any little motion from Nagisa will spark her off and cause an explosion that'll leave him bleeding for weeks. Somehow, the explosion wont touch her, and Nagisa's mother will remain perfectly unchanged and stoic. After, they'll pretend that nothing happened, that Hiromi didn't beat her son, because to her she wouldn't have. Nagisa doesn't know if she truly forgets, or if Hiromi simply brushes away the memories when she's back in a good mood. After, she wont apologise. After, she'll expect him to clean himself up. After, after, after, because Nagisa has already resigned himself to his fate, has long accepted that having the mother he does means being in a constant state of recovery.

 

(Sometimes he can even convince himself that it doesn't mean that he's already given up.)

“Where did you get this, Nagisa? How long did you plan on deceiving me, while you throw away all of my hard work? When did you plan on telling me? Or weren't you going to? You weren't, I can see it in your face!”

 

Nagisa tries to tune his mother out, even as her voice gets louder and louder.

 

“Nagisa! Don't ignore me, little doll. Look at you, you can't even meet my eyes!” Hiromi drops the comic and strides towards her son, footsteps predatory. She grabs a fistful of Nagisa's loose hair, wrenching his head around and forcing him to face her. “You're so weak.”

 

She shoves him away from her. Nagisa stumbles but stays on his feet until her foot comes up and pushes into his hip. The glass full of shells that had been in his hands shatters; seashells and broken glass scatter across the floor. They dig into his palms as Nagisa struggles to raise himself back up. Hiromi makes a _tch_ sound and brings her foot up to slam it back into his face. He crumbles back against the floor, blood gushing from his nose.

 

Hiromi presses her bare foot against Nagisa's throat, until he can't breathe, can't _think_. For a second he scrambles uselessly as her leg, but eventually logic overrides his panic. Nagisa has been in enough fights, killed enough people, to know that trying to push her away wont work. His hands clutch uselessly at empty air for a couple of minutes, and Nagisa almost gives up, gives in, but first his scrambling hands find what he's looking for. The glass cuts into the skin of his fingertips as he grabs it. Almost blindly, Nagisa stabs it into the flesh of his mothers leg.

 

Hiromi jerks her leg away for just a second, but a second is all Nagisa needs. Panting, he claws his way away from her. He doesn't bother standing up, knows it would just waste precious time.

 

“You useless _brat_!”

 

Hiromi tackles him back to the floor and flips his body around so he's staring into her face. Hiromi is panting, breaths harsh against Nagisa's skin, her face bright red. His mother pins Nagisa's hips to the floor with one knee, and wraps a single hand back around his throat. His eyes widen as Nagisa sees her use the other hand to pull out the jagged shard of glass he had earlier skewered into the flesh of her calf. Nagisa renews his struggles as she brings the glass closer to his face, cruel smirk twisting her lush red lips. He almost manages to pry her hand from his throat, but Hiromi just snarls low in her throat and slams his head against the floor.

 

“Death is all you're good for," Hiromi snarls, a cruel smirk twisting her lips. "So why don't you just lay down and die, like a good doll?"

 

Nagisa gasps, tries to force the glass away from his neck, but his mother is too strong. He looks up at her, tears streaming down the sides of his face. The glass shard jerks forward another inch closer to him, and in his desperation, Nagisa grips the edge with his bare hands. Droplets of his own blood drip onto his face, into his mouth. Copper assaults his taste buds, and pain overrides his senses.

 

Hiromi smiles cruelly down at her son. "Tell me, little doll, do you even know what it's like not to have blood on your hands? Have you ever gone more than a month without a fresh kill to sate you? Do you really believe that the only reason you kill, is because I make you? Don't be a fool, Nagisa. You _like_ it. You like it just as much as me. Probably even more!"

 

Nagisa tries to deny it, shakes his head vehemently even as he struggles to keep the glass shard from ending his life.

 

“No,” is all he manages to gasp out, hot tears joining the blood on his face as it slides down his cheeks.

 

“ _Yes_.” Hiromi's voice is vindictive as she surges forward even closer, the edges of the glass digging into vulnerable skin. “The blood in your veins has never been enough to sate you, Nagisa. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Nagisa, that I gave birth to you, that I created the monster you are. I knew the moment I saw you. _Death is all you're good for_.”

 

She keeps saying that. Death is all you're good for. _Well_ , Nagisa thinks frantically, _of course it is._ She _made sure of that._

 

Struck by sudden rage, Nagisa surges up and slams his head into his mother's, uncaring of the glass tearing into his throat. Hiromi falters for just a second, but a second is all Nagisa needs. He wrenches the bloody glass from her equally bloody hand. He prepares to lunge at her, but before he can, Hiromi is already falling forwards, expression slack with surprise and pain.

 

Nagisa doesn't hear the gunshot, but he does hear the animalistic sound of pain that Hiromi releases. He doesn't see where the bullet comes from, but he does see the mist of red that sprays across the wall in it's wake. He doesn't get to kill her, but Shiota Hiromi dies anyway.

 

Colour seems to bleach out of the bloodstained walls as Nagisa watches his mother crumple to the floor, rattling breaths echoing from her hollow chest. The only thing Nagisa can focus on is the seashell lying in the pool of blood quickly surrounding his mother. Dark crimson sinks into every crevice and stains it the colour of Hiromi's dying breaths.

 

When he finally drags his eyes away from the fucking shell, the first thing Nagisa notices is that his mother is already dead. Unaware of his movements, Nagisa drops to his knees and crawls towards her body, indifferent to the fresh tears cascading down his face.

 

“Mom?” Nagisa's voice is barely a whisper, words merely caught on a too rough exhalation. “Mom, I'm sorry, please get up.”

 

He clutches at her body, curling himself around it protectively. “I'm sorry, please don't be mad. I'll be good again, I promise. I promise, I promise. Please don't leave me. I said _I promise_.”

 

Nagisa can barely breathe; he can feel his lungs constricting, trying to choke him. The earth feels unstable beneath him. Colour snaps back into focus, too bright and unwelcome. He closes his eyes against the harsh brightness, burying his head in his mother's bloody chest.

 

Belatedly, Nagisa realises the bullet must have come somewhere, and it was a possibility there would be more. Quickly scanning left to right, Nagisa rushes to drag his mother (his mother's _body_ ) behind the once white couch in the sitting room. _It looks like we aren't getting that safety deposit back_ , Nagisa thinks dazedly.

 

Peering around the stained cushions almost absently, Nagisa scans the area. It doesn't take him long to find his mother's assassin; he doesn't even bother hiding – if Nagisa didn't have such a hazy state of mind, he'd be offended. Instead, the man watches Nagisa back with curious brown eyes. He was of average height, dressed in a pressed black suit that was obviously expensive. And his _smile_... His smile was kind enough that if it weren't for the gun resting comfortably in his hand, Nagisa would have believed it to be genuine.

 

“What are you doing?” the man's voice, clear and alight with almost childish curiosity, startles Nagisa out of his staring daze.

 

“...What?”

 

“What are you doing?” he repeats patiently. “You were just fighting; I saw you. She was trying to kill you. So why are you trying to protect her now. She's dead anyway.”

 

Nagisa's racing thoughts stutter to a halt. “I don't know.” He swallows heavily and repeats himself. “I don't know. She's all I have.”

 

“Had.” the assassin corrects helpfully.

 

Nagisa's eyes fall closed. “She's all I had. She is all I am. Shit, _was_. I don't know what to do without her.”

 

The man strides forward to kneel backwards on the stained couch, facing Nagisa. His head leans over the back of the couch, large hands holding onto the back. “I guess you don't really have a choice but to figure that out, now. Sorry,” he adds, almost as an afterthought.

 

“It's okay,” Nagisa replies automatically.

 

“Say,” the man begins rubbing absently at his chin. “You wouldn't be interested in coming with me, would you? I've been thinking about taking on an apprentice lately. You seem like you could handle it.”

 

Nagisa closes his eyes against the sudden rage that floods him. The man in front of him was talking as if he hadn't just killed his mother, as if they weren't talking over her fresh corpse. She was still cradled protectively in his lap, body still warm but eyes dark and cold. Unconsciously, Nagisa clenches his hands into fists, sticky from blood.

 

“You killed my mother,” he spits.

 

The assassin regards him calmly. “I did.”

 

"Why?" is all he can manage to force out between clenched teeth. He means _why did you kill my mother?_ and _why did you save me?_ He means _why did you steal a life that was mine to take, not yours?_

 

(He means _will you kill me next? Will you save me the trouble of having to do it myself?)_

 

The assassin's smirk twists his face. "Well, a man's gotta eat, y'know?"

 

Nagisa shakes his head, struggling to retain his grasp on the last wisps of his anger. In the end, all he can do is press his face against his mother's chest, not wanting the assassin to see the fresh tears pouring out of his eyes. When he manages to compose himself again, Nagisa lifts his head and gazes tiredly at his mother's murderer, distantly surprised that he was still standing there. He blinks sluggishly, the blood matted in his eyelashes sticking them together in clumps.

 

“What now?”

 

The assassin shrugs back at him, eyeing the young boy with what Nagisa guessed was concern.

 

“I guess I'll see you around,” he eventually replies, concern washed away and replaced with his previous cheery demeanour.

 

The assassin turns to climb off the couch and out the door, but before he can, Nagisa surges forward and clutches at his suit jacket.

 

“Wait,” he pleads.

 

The assassin stops and raises a curious brow at Nagisa over his shoulder. “My offer still stands, if you wanted to join me and become my apprentice.”

 

Nagisa shakes his head immediately.“Your name?” he's embarrassed to hear his voice crack on the second word. He clears his throat and tries again. “What is your name?”

 

A bitter smile crosses the assassin's face as he continues to the window, easily shaking off Nagisa's grip on his jacket. “I don't know,” he looks back once more at Nagisa. “but they call me the God of Death.”

 

* * *

 

It's a normal day, almost unreal in it's peacefulness, when Hiromi Shiota is murdered.

 

 

 

 


End file.
